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Lights! Camera! Call to Action!

We’ll start off rather with a relatively simple, but often overlooked aspect of lead gen optimization. The call to action (CTA) can be used pretty much anywhere but should be tailored to the type of page it is on. For example, you might want to use a CTA linking to a free white paper for video marketers on one of your blog posts. Placement is also important when it comes to the CTA. Something as simple as being above or below the fold (depending on screen resolution and format of course) could make a difference in your goals. The most important thing, though, is to test frequently and test often to figure out what works best for your page.

With that said, here are some areas where I think some A/B testing could yield an improvement in CTA effectiveness:

The Home Page

There are 4 CTAs on the Vidyard homepage

We can see that the main page has 4 CTAs. There are two (1 and 2) above the fold (3 is also above the fold depending on your screen resolution. I’m running 1200×1920 so I get #3 above the fold) and two below. It seems strange that the largest and most in-your-face CTA (#3) is above or below the fold depending on screen resolution. I would try putting it above the fold regardless of screen resolution and compare results.

Another thing that could be tested is consolidation of #2 and #3. They do the exact same thing apart from when they ask for an e-mail. Maybe a test could be run that determines whether asking for an e-mail address before or after clicking on the CTA yields better results. The copy on #3 is far more descriptive and tells me exactly what I’m getting into with the free trial. Having a single, optimized CTA would free up space and would allow you to do things like place your social proof above the fold as well.

Furthermore, the CTAs on the front page appear to be market qualifying in that they offer a trial. This is great for somebody who is deeper into the funnel but may not work for someone who is at the top of the funnel. Perhaps adding CTAs targeted to top/middle-of-the-funnel users would help.

Since #1 and #4 are also present on the rest of the site, excluding the blog, I’ll discuss them next.

The Rest of the Site (Minus the Blog)

The rest of the site consistently has two CTAs (1 and 4 as seen on the home page). CTA #1 blends in really nicely with the navigation buttons at the top but blending in isn’t really what we want a CTA to do. The whole point is to stand out and attract the user. Coincidentally, CTA #4 is often below the fold but it is styled in a way that it attracts the eyes. Would it not make more sense to have CTA #1 “pop out” more (like #4)? Also, how well is CTA #4 working? What if we got rid of it completely and focused on CTA #1 instead?

Box‘s home page (and the rest of their site, for that matter) is a good example of this. Would this work for Vidyard?

Box has a single CTA/Login button in the navigation menu that is consistent across the entire site

The Blog

Besides links to the Vidyard Twitter page, there are zero CTAs on the blog. According to Hubspot, there should be CTAs on every page, including the blog. For starters, how about just the navigation/menu bar that is consistent throughout the rest of the site?

Besides consolidating the styling of the blog/website, there could be CTAs in the blog itself. Referencing Hubspot again, the CTAs that do best on blogs are typically those that are top-of-the-funnel and educational. This would be a good starting point but it would be best if various CTAs were tested depending on the content of the blog post. A middle/late funnel CTA may even be appropriate at times.

These are just a few of my observations which are, of course, a very superficial look at the Vidyard site. However, I still think that the things I’ve mentioned could be put intro practice and tested thoroughly. Implementation without testing is probably going to yield suboptimal results. Until next time, happy testing!